


Winter Bones

by Life_giver



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:55:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25329649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Life_giver/pseuds/Life_giver
Summary: “You return in seasons like the healing of a broken bone,” Beleg murmured as a way of comfort. He understood Túrin’s hesitance, had seen firsthand the subtle cruelty of the court to mortals. He himself could never stomach the frippery of it all. He would much rather dig his hands into the soft soil, bathe in the river, eat from the ground as they had done since the beginning of time. His people were meant for the soil of Arda and all Yavanna’s growing things, not the stone of halls of Aulë.
Relationships: Beleg Cúthalion/Túrin Turambar
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48





	Winter Bones

He would never be Eldar, but he understood the land as one. The thought flitted through Beleg’s mind as he sat shedding the bark from an arrow with a sharp bit of flint, eyes tracking his hunting partner as he set the hare traps. He watched him in fleeting moments as he worked, wondering at how quickly Túrin had grown from youth to man. Men were curious creatures to Beleg; they grew faster than the crops in the fields and with each season they died a little more. Túrin followed Beleg’s own customs and wore his face bare. He wore his dark hair braided at the temples and pulled back as they hunted, so that he blended quite well into his found family. 

But there were times he had caught Túrin examining his own face in the mirror, sharpened knife in hand, poised to nick away the beard that had tried stubbornly to grow the last few years. It was as if he warred with the image in the mirror and the past he had been taken from. Both struggled for dominance, but neither would ever be the victor. Beleg hadn’t the heart to tell him so. He was neither elf, nor man, but hovered between both worlds, an outcast unto himself. 

They talked about much between them, secluded as they were in this dense forest with only one another as company. But they did not talk of loneliness, both understood it in their own right. Beleg cast his eyes down to his work when Túrin came near. He smelled of the forest, of moss and growing things, and the dirt that was forever stuck beneath his nails. Túrin sat down next to him on the tree he’d felled himself, and handed Beleg his drinking horn, filled to the brim with good, strong wine. 

“It smells of rain,” Túrin said, taking Beleg’s arrow from him so that he could drink. At once, Túrin took over the shaping of the arrow with skilled hands. The first gift Túrin had given Beleg had been a fine arrow, tipped with black obsidian. He had shaped it himself soon after Beleg had taken him from his foster father’s halls to live the life of a hunter. It was the only arrow Beleg had never spent. 

“Time passes so strangely in this forest,” Túrin murmured, accepting the horn back and drinking deeply. His mouth came away stained full and red. 

“It’s as if it doesn’t pass at all, and then at other times, it’s gone too quickly.” 

Beleg understood well. Time stood still for his kind, especially beneath the heavy leaves of this forest. They lived in a muted green reality, where the trees whispered to one another at night, and the stars turned above them without end. And yet, Túrin continued to walk the path of mortality, changing swiftly every day. 

He watched Túrin for a time, his well-shaped hands smoothing the obsidian to a shine. When he handed the arrow head to Beleg, it’s point was perfect and when he pressed it against the pad of his thumb, blood welled to the surface. Túrin’s brow wrinkled and he took Beleg’s wrist. The movement startled him, they were always in company with one another but rarely did they touch, even to clasp an arm. 

“You and I are so very different,” Túrin murmured, turning Beleg’s hand to see the palm. Blood slid down his wrist and neither moved to wipe it away. “I notice all too often, and it never gets any easier.” His words were short, as they always were but they dripped heavily with meaning. They lived in different worlds as they sat side by side, and nothing would ever change that fact. 

“And yet we bleed the same,” Túrin said finally, dropping Beleg’s wrist and turning his face to the sky just as it opened and began to rain. 

The cabin that Beleg had built for himself was sparsely furnished but he’d built a small bed for Túrin when he’d come to live with him. Túrin lay watching the thin shadows from the candle beside his bed, playing on the roof of the cabin. Outside, the forest was alive with sounds, animals on the hunt, wind blowing through the trees as a light rain pattered against the roof. He couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. He was a restless creature, but the forest stilled that restlessness, made him sit quietly and listen to it. Beleg made him vigilant. He tossed a glance to his friend, who lay sleeping with his back to him across the room. Above Beleg’s bed was mounted a magnificent set of antlers. 

_ “Never take from the forest what she does not provide you,” Beleg murmured, hand stroking the neck of the fallen elk gently. Túrin nodded, quiet and observant of his mentor’s actions. He tried so often to emulate him, but he couldn’t seem to walk as quietly or hold himself with any grace. Certainly he’d never caught Beleg unawares.  _

_ “Perhaps we should leave this one for the wolves that have been circling our camp,” Beleg smiled at the way Túrin glanced about himself quickly, listening for the sounds of predators. He was still a child and curled beneath his furs at night when the howling started up. His own people would have hunted the wolves, taken them down before they could start stealing the cattle, but Beleg left them alone. He honored all creatures, predator and prey.  _

_ “But I think some smoked meat would do you good,” Beleg’s smile widened as Túrin’s stomach rumbled at the thought of meat. He was slowly becoming accustomed to the quick meals Beleg took along on patrols and hunts, but bread, berries, and fish were fast becoming dull. “We’ll honor our gift by using every part of this beautiful beast. I’ll make you a good bone-handled knife, and you’ll need new boots for the winter.”  _

He still wore the necklace Beleg had made him from the elk; leather and bone. He picked it from his chest then, letting the candle-light glance from the white bone. Beleg had carved a helm with the edge of one of his paring knives. He closed his fist over it and held it tightly. 

The room was uncomfortably warm from the fire they had burned in the grate earlier, and so Túrin slipped out of bed, as quietly as he could. He blew out the candle beside Beleg’s bed and stood looking at him for a moment. His skin was unearthly, nearly luminescent beneath the faint moonlight streaming in from the little window beside his bed, as if his very skin was made from the fabric of stars. He carried the moon in his silver hair. Túrin’s brow creased and he stepped away as Beleg sighed in his sleep. 

Outside, the air was cool and crisp after the rain, and he breathed in the damp scent of mud and forest deeply, glad to have space for his thoughts to roam. He followed the river for a time. Soronume was bright overhead, and he searched for other stars, connecting them as Beleg had taught him. 

_ “See how it resembles an eagle?” Beleg murmured, closing one eye and tracing his finger above Túrin’s face, sweeping along the outspread stars. “These are the wings.”  _

_ “It looks like an arrow to me,” Túrin said thoughtfully, head cocked. He heard Beleg release a small breath of laughter beside him, but his eyes continued to trace the stars, trying to form it into an eagle. “It looks like your arrows,” He added, and when he turned his head, Beleg was looking at him, an amused smile tucked into the corner of his mouth. He looked down, hands hanging between his bent knees where they sat by the river.  _

_ “Do you think your gods know us?” His words came in a rush and his face colored as he realized he’d voiced his thoughts aloud. But now that the words had been placed outside of himself, he found he wanted to know the answer more than ever before. He’d lain awake many nights, struggling to find meaning in this strange life he lived. Sometimes he wanted to step out of his skin because it felt wrong and twisted, and sometimes he wanted to disappear into the woods and find out who he truly was. Maybe the storm inside him would settle if he found himself out there in the wild. He had run from Thingol’s court, but he couldn’t outrun himself.  _

_ “You say Varda made these,” He continued, hand sweeping over the stars dotting the velvet sky when Beleg remained quiet. “But she made them for you.” The very light from the stars seemed caught in the intricate braids falling down Beleg’s back and he felt his body warm to the beauty of it. “Men will always be guests in your god’s house.” _

_ Beleg’s deep forest eyes studied Túrin and then he laughed softly. When he shook his head, a few of the leaves and flowers he’d tucked into his braids, fell loose and scattered around their boots. If Beleg could be a tree, Túrin was almost certain he would root himself to the forest floor and live there happily growing amongst the green things.  _

_ “We are all guests in the Valar’s home, Turamabar.” His thumb and forefinger brushed just under his own bottom lip as he regarded Túrin, and Túrin’s eyes followed the elegant movement of his fingers. He noticed many things these days as his body transformed into that of a man. He forced his gaze away.  _

_“This beauty is for every creature walking Arda,” Beleg continued. “_ _Eru Ilúvatar_ _would not have placed beauty in men if that were not so.” And yet even as his skin warmed to Beleg’s words, Túrin could not help but to think that they were unfairly matched. Beleg walked in magic, and made harp strings of his heart._

His affection was blasphemous, misplaced, an arrow off its mark. Beleg had never answered whether his gods noticed the likes of men, and he knew why. He was insignificant in the eyes of the Valar. They were not his gods. His father had followed in the tracks of the Eldar, but he would never be one of them, and he’d placed the same sorry fate upon his son. Varda had cast light into the dark veil, woven the stars together for her people. She did not look down and wonder about the fate of men. Beleg’s eyes would always pass over him, seeking fairer ground. 

A sound came from the dark line of trees beside him, and he stopped walking, hand going for the dagger he’d slipped into his boot. He had left his bow and sword in the cabin because he’d only meant to take a walk. He’d wandered far from their camp and realized it now too late. 

A second later, wind sped past his ear and a dark arrow landed in the tree ahead of him. His feet rushed him forward, flitting through the trees and using them as cover as Beleg had taught him while on patrol. It was hard for an arrow to find its mark in a moving target, especially if that target was Eldar, but Túrin was a man, and pain lanced through the back of his shoulder blade and he knew he had been shot. There were more pursuers than he could take on alone and with only a dagger to defend himself, and so he fled, hearing the pursuit of several heavy feet behind him.

It was known that orcs often slipped past the border and hunted in the forest, but most were quickly dealt with before they ever got to the hidden forests of Doriath.

_ “See with your ears, young elk", _ Beleg often told him.

But tonight his thoughts had crowded his senses and left him defenseless. His heart pounded to the steps of his feet as he pushed away from the river, following Beleg’s tracks. His only advantage in this chase was that he knew this forest better than the lifelines on his palm; he knew each stream and river, each tree and sapling. He’d grown up here and made friends with the soil as Beleg had taught him to. The orcs were in high pursuit though and followed him relentlessly. He wondered for a moment if they knew who he was, if somehow they had heard his true name whispered somewhere far and come hunting him. Or was he merely their sport for the night? 

Another arrow rushed past his face as he quickly calculated his odds and began to climb a bank that would lead him back down to the water. If he jumped, he could take his chances with the river, she would be more merciful than an orc band in captivity. When he made it to the top of the bank, he took only a moment to gather his courage. The river was swift and relentless, it would surely kill him if he could not swim for the bank. 

He had no more time to think as a meaty hand grabbed at the back of his neck, forcing him around. Pain lanced through his ribs and foul breath grazed his face as his own dagger was twisted into his flesh. He used the last bit of his strength to separate himself from the orc holding him captive, boot pressing sharply into his stomach, and then he was free and falling over the cliff, the river rushing up to meet him. 

_ Beleg will have lamented the chance to kill me himself for my stupidity _ , was his last thought before all went black. 

  
  


The scent of yarrow and honey, a sickly sweet and piquant combination was the first thing to tug at his senses. Túrin’s body felt leaden, a stone that would not soon be moved. Even his eyelids felt heavy and he realized a damp cloth had been placed over them. Was this his burial? He had seen the odd soldier in Doriath, raised on his mound, flowers in his hair and hands, a band of silk to cover his eyes for the road to Mandos’ halls. But those halls were not his, and his people had customs of their own for the likes of him. He reached up slowly and pulled the cloth from his eyes, blinking in the golden light. The sun was setting outside the open door, and it was Beleg’s cabin that he lay in, in his own bed. 

The distant sound of chopping wood drifted into the cabin, but to leave this bed and find Beleg seemed too big a task. Pain was a riotous friend in his left side, and he passed a hand over the tightly wound bandages there. Beleg had washed his wounds with yarrow, treated them with honey as he had seen him do with the odd wounded patrol **.** The forest nurtured and healed those who honored her, and it seemed her rivers were kind to those who walked with the Eldar. He winced, shifting on his cot that suddenly seemed to be made out of stone. 

“You carry ill-fortune on your brow, Turambar,” Beleg’s voice came from the doorway and Túrin looked up to see him framed in the golden noon. 

“I did not die?” He croaked, his throat dry and parched. He could barely believe he had survived an arrow, a dagger, and a fall from a cliff. 

“Very nearly,” Beleg said, coming to sit beside him on a stool that had been placed by the bed. 

Túrin breathed in the scent of damp moss and cedar clinging to Beleg’s hair. It was a more pleasant smell than the healing herbs stinging his wounds. Beleg touched the bandage at his side and Túrin recoiled, moving away from his hand. 

“Be still.” Beleg’s sharp command startled Túrin. Listening to Beleg speak was like listening to the wood whisper, it was the wind through the leaves, gentle and unassuming. He never raised his voice unless it was to whistle to the animals or to sing while he worked. 

“You are angry with me,” Túrin murmured, lying still as Beleg pulled his bandage away. His blood was dark against the white cloth and he swallowed thickly at the sight of it. Beleg was silent as he sat Túrin up so that he could tend to the wound against his shoulder blade as well. Beleg’s face remained smooth, but there was the slightest tightening of his mouth as he worked, and Beleg felt a burning in his chest. He had never upset Beleg, it was a strange feeling. 

“I saw you fall-”

“How did you track me?” Túrin hissed as Beleg pressed the yarrow into his shoulder blade more roughly than he needed to. 

“You have not mastered silence, Turambar,” Beleg murmured, green eyes flitting up to his face. “In fact, you sound like the orcs that wounded you, trampling through the forest.” There was a slight tugging on his lips, but the smile did not form completely and Túrin knew that his friend was silently furious with him, in that slow, quiet way of his. 

He worked without speaking for a time, his hands drawing pained breaths from Túrin. When he was done, he dipped a clean cloth into an ewer of cool water beside the bed and bathed the sweat from his face with all the gentleness he had withheld on his wounds. Túrin leaned into the touch, startled at how nice a feeling it was to have another’s hands on his skin. 

“A fine nurse-maid you make,” Túrin quipped, looking for any sign of that steady smile Beleg usually wore. But Beleg only shook his head and stood, dropping the soiled cloth back into the ewer with an irritated flick. 

“Were all my teachings left on the wayside? You were entrusted to me, Túrin.” It was rare that his given name was spoken by Beleg, and the sound of it made shame creep into his heart.

“Beleg, I am sorry,” He murmured. “Brashness is in my blood.” 

“Human life is fragile,” Beleg said, his tone deep and serious, as if he had only just realized how truly human Túrin was. His brow creased as he stood in the doorway, the fading light catching his hair and burning it silvergold. 

“You would do well to guard it better, for it is precious.” 

He was still half a child to Beleg. 

_ A man _ , he reminded himself, but all men were children to the Eldar. The years Túrin had walked this earth were so miniscule compared to the years it had taken Beleg to mature, to learn logic and instinct. He was too hard on Túrin, too protective. He was at the age when he would go his own way, find his own path. The day Beleg had reached maturity, he had strapped his longbow across his back and he had slipped into the woods, and had never looked back. He had known his path and had walked it with confidence. Túrin must find his way and that was something Beleg could not help him with. 

Naivety would surely bleed itself from the wounds Túrin had taken. 

_ Surely.  _

When Beleg found the clearing he’d been searching for, he bent and gathered the herbs he needed to ease Túrin’s pain. He had a bit of willow bark in his satchel that would help with the fever Túrin was fighting to sweat out. He had cleaned the wound carefully but infection had still settled from the foul orc arrow that had pierced the skin of his shoulder. He would have a nasty scar when it healed. 

_ “These will be your first scars and you will remember them always,”  _ Beleg had murmured the last time he’d changed Túrin’s bandages to his ribs.  _ “They will teach you patience and caution.”  _

When he returned to his little cabin, he found Túrin sleeping soundly, the cask of warm milk he’d placed beside his bed drained. His skin was flushed but dry and it seemed the fever had finally broken. He placed the herbs and willowbark beside the bed. He would crush them with pestle when the lad awoke. But for now, it was enough to push down the gnawing fear that had been trailing him for days. The moment he’d seen Túrin go over that cliff, he’d felt his heart go with him, and that was an odd feeling, as if he’d nearly lost one of his own limbs. Cleaving the heads from the orcs that had driven Túrin from that cliff had not settled his soul.

He knew the forest in the way that he knew his fëa, it was a part of him. She had taught him how to live in her green arms and survive on her graciousness, but nothing had prepared him for a man that carried ill-fortune on his brow and the summer storms in his gaze. 

Túrin feigned sleep, blankets pulled over his shoulders so that he could just see the shape of Beleg entering the cabin. He closed his eyes when he came near and set a bundle of bark and herbs tied together with a bit of twine near his bed. When he opened his eyes again, he found his friend readying for bed, pulling his tunic over his head and Túrin saw that his skin glistened in the firelight, his river-damp hair free from its braids, laid in tangled silver waves, nearly touching his waist as he turned and pulled his bed back. 

The Eldar bathed daily and Túrin had taken on that ritual, had often swam with Beleg, but there was also a silent modesty between them. He had never spied on Beleg when he undressed in the little privacy this space afforded them, and he wondered if it was that way between Beleg and the elves of the field, or even if it was that way between men. He knew only the Eldar and their strange customs, and that he emulated them like a parrot. 

There was little he could remember from when he had lived with his mother, but that had been the ways of women. She had suckled his sister at her breast while he played soldiers on the floor at her feet, but that sort of nakedness was natural and good, even in the eyes of the Eldar. The women of Thingol’s court carried their children at their breast, a bit of silk covering their babe, and little else. 

Perhaps it was merely Beleg’s own strange ways. He was lean but finely muscled from his bow, a stone god, and there was no scar or blemish that Túrin could see, and he saw much before Beleg slipped beneath the thin covers of his bed. Still, the sight moved Túrin and when the heat became too much, he turned restlessly to the wall, his breath coming too unsteady. There were ways he knew he could release the sudden heat in his body but it was crude with Beleg sleeping so close. He had often wondered at how poised Beleg’s people seemed, how restrained when it came to passion. 

_ It is only your fever and the gnawing pain of your foolish wounds _ , he soothed himself. He had not been allowed to leave his sickbed in days and he was getting restless. He would have better hold of himself when he could roam freely again. 

He had not heard Beleg leave his bed, but suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder and he turned to find Beleg sitting beside his bed, mortar and pestle in his lap. He had not bothered to put on his tunic, and his hair was left free about his face. 

“Do not keep your pain quiet,” Beleg murmured, that gentle smile Túrin had yearned for earlier, now stuck into the corner of his mouth. “It is a good and necessary compass.” 

“I have learned my lesson,” Túrin said begrudgingly and he understood that he’d been forgiven. He watched as Beleg prepared the herbs and mixed them with a little milk for him to stomach. He drank the bitter concoction with a wince, but the pain became a distant memory after a time. He sank back into the softness of his bed, gazing up at Beleg, his body light as if he’d drunk too much ale. 

“When I first saw you in the king’s court, I thought you were a forest god,” He murmured, his eyes dragging down. “Oromë ready for the hunt,” He smiled at the memory, seeing Beleg in his green clothes, winter flowers a crown about his silver head. He looked as if he belonged not in the white halls of Doriath, but deep in the green woods, a true fae. 

_ Otherworldly, _ in a world that was already ripe with magic. 

That was what Túrin had thought. 

He felt a hand against his brow, moving his hair aside, and his last thought before sleep pulled him under, was that Beleg’s hand was cool as stone, and never before had he hoped to feel it against his face.

Autumn turned the wood red, it crept in spots and mottled splashes of color, tarnishing the good green of the trees. The smell of rotting foliage and mulch pierced the air now, promising a hard winter. Curling brown leaves shed themselves around Túrin’s feet as he sat on a stump, released from his veritable prison. In his lap was a bowl of berries Beleg had picked, the last of the sweet red ones. He ate them now, staining his fingertips as Beleg worked a set of hunting braids at his temple. He felt like a child again, having his hair combed and braided as he ate sweet treats at Melian’s feet, but he still could not raise his arm high enough without becoming breathless with pain. The scar where he’d been stuck like a boar had healed and turned white against his skin, but he had shattered several ribs with the fall. 

_ “It takes a season for a bone to heal completely,” _ Beleg had told him.  _ “It’s much slower with your kind. You heal like a wounded forest, it requires patience.”  _

He imagined that Beleg treated him so kindly now, his patience never-ending, because he’d likened him to a forest, and there was nothing Beleg loved more than these deep woods.

“Sometimes I see the Eldar in you,” Beleg laughed, skilled fingers quick and deft against his temple. “You do not set foot outside without your hair in proper order.” 

“I was told it was improper not to,” Túrin answered, regarding the berry between his fingers as he remembered the early days of his childhood in the court. He had followed the women mostly as a child, but they had taught him their ways amongst the weaving and laughter near the fountains. He had played with the other children at times, but there was often taunting. His ears had been pulled once, wondering at their odd shape, and he’d gotten into the odd tussle because of it.

“He is sour of face and strange of mood,” The children would say. 

“He is only a boy,” Nellas, who he knew now, had been a nurse-maid of sorts to him, would excuse.

“A spirited one,” Melian would laugh. 

Only Beleg had truly gained his friendship in the time he’d lived in Doriath, and those roots were deeper than any tree in this ancient forest. He felt Beleg begin to twist braids into what he’d always found resembled the scaled spine of a fish. 

“It is an intimate ritual,” Beleg said, his breath close to Túrin’s ear as he bent close as he worked. 

“Melian herself would braid my hair sometimes.” 

“An honor,” Beleg agreed. “-between kin, she is your foster mother after all.” 

The Eldar were full of rituals and odd nuances. If he had not been raised amongst these people, he would have been lost in a phrase or a look that held deep meaning. For that fact, he’d had to step more carefully in this world than most. He was at the grace of the king and queen, for their charity, but it had also brought him much quiet sorrow. He spoke their tongue, he dressed in their clothing, he wore his hair in their fashion, but he would never be truly accepted because he was not Eldar. Living among them would be akin to swimming upstream for all eternity. He still remembered those careful dances of the court, and was all the more glad for the freedom Beleg had given to him here. 

This forest felt more like home than anything had after his mother. 

“Winter will be here soon,” Beleg commented. “It’s sharp on the air.” 

“I feel it in my broken bones,” Túrin said. When he touched the fish braid lying on his shoulder, he realized that Beleg had tucked the last green pine sprigs of summer into the braid. He smiled to himself, feeling that strange sensation bloom in his chest at the gesture. 

“We call them winter bones,” Beleg murmured, his lips too close to the curve of his ear. 

It was in the dead of winter that Beleg noticed the fire ignite inside of Túrin, a blue-hot flame that flickered in the depths of his dark eyes. There had always been a restlessness in him, but now it threatened to burst from his shoulder blades in the form of wings, and Beleg was afraid he’d suddenly take flight. Túrin took long walks now, near to camp, but far enough away that he could be alone with himself. Beleg would watch his footprints in the deep snow, trailing the frozen river, and he wondered when the time would come. 

It was close at hand, he could feel it, and he worked to prepare himself. 

It was never Túrin’s destiny to stay hidden away in the forests of Doriath. 

“Come warm yourself,” Beleg commanded, holding out a cup of wine as Túrin knocked the snow from his boots in the entryway. A fierce wind was gusting outside, knocking the door on its hinges- it took a strong tug for Túrin to close it and latch it. The fire Beleg had started in the grate flickered and danced with the draft that came from the cracks in the walls he had not bothered to mend during the lazy days of summer. Sometimes he forgot how sensitive Túrin was to the cold. Turin tried to hide his shivering but Beleg noticed, and he kept his furs wrapped around his shoulders as he sat on the floor by the fire, cradling the warm spiced wine Beleg had made in both hands. He watched the frost melt from Túrin’s fingers, dripping onto the floor around him. 

“Messengers from the court came to call,” Túrin said, eyes on the fire, and Beleg nodded. He had seen them on the edges of the forest but knew who their business had been for. And so he had retreated, carving knife in hand and let Túrin meet with them. 

“King Thingol has called me home,” He said the last bit as if the word stuck to the roof of his mouth, awkward and unused. 

“And so you must go,” Beleg answered. “Word of your recovery has surely reached his ears. He will want to be sure that I have not killed you out here in the wild.” Beleg smiled as Túrin looked up at him, his face still as smooth water. 

“You return in seasons like the healing of a broken bone,” Beleg murmured as a way of comfort. He understood Túrin’s hesitance, had seen firsthand the subtle cruelty of the court to mortals. He himself could never stomach the frippery of it all. He would much rather dig his hands into the soft soil, bathe in the river, eat from the ground as they had done since the beginning of time. His people were meant for the soil of Arda and all Yavanna’s growing things, not the stone of halls of Aulë. 

He took a long drink from his own cup of wine. He had been in his cups the whole evening and was finally beginning to feel the wine’s calming effects. He had made this year’s batch from the summer blackberries and pears and he’d made it quite potent. Even Túrin’s frame relaxed as he held out his cup for another pour, but his face was still smooth, as if lost in thought. It wasn’t uncommon, it was rare to see Túrin smile, but he did not wish to see him troubled. 

“I do not think I will come back,” Túrin finally admitted, dark eyes flitting up and catching Beleg in their hard embrace. There was only the faintest trip to his heart because he had already surmised Túrin’s fate. 

“And yet, I do not wish to leave my home.” And this time, the word _ home, _ fit comfortably in his mouth, and Beleg felt his chest swell with a bit of pride. It wasn’t the court Túrin spoke of, but Beleg’s forest,  _ Túrin’s _ forest. Beleg had worked hard to instill a sense of belonging in Túrin, had taught him that the forest would always be here to embrace him when all else fell away. 

They had made a home out of this wood. 

“But you do wish to go and you must go,” Beleg said, setting aside his cup of white oak, fashioned carefully as all things in his little circle of forest. “What you seek, you will not find here with me.” There was a meaning beneath the meaning in his words that he hoped Túrin would understand. He had seen the boy’s eyes linger on him of late, had caught the heat in that gaze and had chosen to extinguish it. It pained his very fëa to say those words. Love had bound him tightly to this mortal, but one could not converge two separate worlds into one, not in this reality. 

“To bed with you,” Beleg finally said, taking Túrin's drained cup from his thawed hands. “You’ll have a long trek in the coming days, and I want you gone before the storms settle in.” 

“A fine friend you are,” Túrin muttered. “Throwing me out in the dead of winter.” But there was a soft smile on his face, and Beleg held it close, stored that look in his memories for the cold months ahead. 

  
  


There was little warmth to be had once the fire had been smothered even with the elk furs Beleg had piled onto Túrin’s bed. Still he tossed and turned, echoes of his injuries stabbing him with bits of pain. The cold would never be gentle on him again, not with the scars on his bones. 

He cast a glance over to Beleg where he slept on peacefully, his back turned to him and only a thin blanket pooling about his waist. He remembered his words of earlier, the deep nuance beneath them that Túrin had swallowed with pain. He  _ knew _ and yet he had turned away as Túrin had expected he would. 

Perhaps the wine had made him fearless, where he had been too craven to even touch Beleg’s arm. Or maybe it was the knowledge that this could very well be the last night he would ever spend in this cabin, with Beleg, and knowledge like that was dangerous. 

He stood, gathering his furs and approached Beleg’s bed. It was barely big enough for two bodies but it would have to do. He reached out and touched his shoulder, and Beleg turned, his face bright in the moonlight, and very awake, as if he’d been waiting for Túrin. 

“It is too cold to sleep alone tonight.” 

Silence hung heavy between them for a moment, and Túrin’s heart beat a rhythm like a scared doe, waiting for its fate. If he was turned away now, then they could feign ignorance in the morning. Túrin would perhaps sling an arm around his shoulder, promise to visit during the summer months, but the lie would be in his eyes, and their friendship would now have the small, almost invisible fractures that most relationships acquired over time. 

Because of unspent desire, because of an invisible yearning that Túrin could not tear from his chest. 

“You are trouble, Turambar,” Was all Beleg said and then he pulled back his blanket and made room for him. Túrin’s heartbeat still ran riotous, and his hands trembled as he slipped into the bed and pulled the furs over them both, but Beleg had accepted his invitation. He had studied closely the small bands of couples around court and he knew more of their ways of passion than he should. Their desire was quiet and dealt with delicately. A flower tucked behind the ear, a secret smile near the fountains, a blanket pulled back in the dead of winter. 

He settled down on his back, forcing Beleg against the wall, but his arm brushed the bare skin of Beleg’s chest and he did not move away. The heat between their bodies was enough of a furnace to keep Túrin warm the entire night. He could feel Beleg breathing very quietly, felt the warmth of his breath close to his neck in the small space between them. He smelled of spices tonight, and cold river water, and there was the smell of dying pine in his hair. 

He could not breach the space between them, but Beleg did, and he thanked the gods because his heart was still craven. He felt a finger against the side of his neck, trailing very lightly, tracing his racing pulse and his eyes fell closed, his body now burning beneath the furs. No winter chill could touch him here. The finger was curious, playful even as it brushed just under his jaw and then traced the gentle curve of his ear. He nearly pulled away, remembering the taunts, the otherness of his body, but then he felt lips, pressing there against his ear and smiling. 

“You are nervous as a hare.” 

“I do not know what to do,” He admitted in a whisper, fingers clenching in the sheets beneath him, unwilling to reach out just yet. 

“Listen to your body as you do the forest,” Beleg murmured, lips pressing against his jaw and trailing fire. “It is all one in the same, that whispering.” He felt Beleg untangle his hand from the sheets and pull it towards him.

“You have wanted to reach out. My fëa has answered.” Beleg let him move the rest of the way and he turned, his hand catching at Beleg’s neck, sliding tentatively to the back of his neck, beneath his silver fall of hair. His skin was as warm as his own, as if he had caught fever and when he opened his eyes, he found Beleg’s face flushed with color at the cheeks and neck. Desire was the same in any language, in any body he realized. 

His body wanted to feel the smoothness of Beleg’s lips and so he answered that call, leaning forward and kissing him. It was a soft touch, curious and uncertain. It was Beleg who deepened the kiss, smiling when he released a surprised breath. Heat pooled in his belly as Beleg cradled his face, tongue dipping into his mouth and brushing against his own. His mouth tasted of cinnamon and clove and berries and Túrin found himself pressing forward, the man in him charging like a starved hunter. 

Beleg moaned a little as their hips collided with the forceful motion and Túrin felt then that the Eldar were indeed like men in their play. Beleg swelled against his thigh, breath coming fast against Túrin’s rough mouth. He let his hand touch unbound silver, marveling at how like silk it felt between his fingers. And then his hands wandered down Beleg’s chest, hard as the stone he imagined it to be, and pale against his hand. Beleg’s eyes were deep, dark moss as Túrin’s hand slid down the flat plane of his stomach, and then his fingers pulled a little at his sleeping trousers. Lust had taken over thought and it was easy then to slip his hand inside. 

“Túrin,” Beleg whispered, eyes closing, and his name sounded like a soft song on Beleg’s lips. 

He touched him, felt the hard shape of him and drew pleasure from his lips with each stroke and kiss to the corner of his mouth. It was like tuning an instrument, finding the right chords, as he’d done in Melian’s company, but this was easier, more instinctive. Beleg was right, his body would know what to do. 

They were not so different while bare. Túrin was also lightly corded muscle though not as smooth as Beleg and he marveled at his skin as he touched him, sliding his lips down the long expanse of his neck. He wanted more, but he wasn’t quite sure how to go about getting it. He turned his eyes up at Beleg and Beleg laughed breathlessly.

“Impatience runs through your blood, Turamabar.” Beleg smiled at him as he reached above his bed where hung a vial of oil Túrin had seen Beleg use on his skin and hair and he watched in fascination as he dripped the oil onto his fingers. When he touched Túrin with fingers and palm slick with oil and smelling of sharp cloves, he lay back and shuddered in his hand. Beleg pressed against his side, stroking him slowly, teasing sounds from him he wasn’t aware lay dormant inside of his chest. 

“The Eldar do not do this lightly,” Beleg murmured against the shell of his ear and Túrin shuddered as warmth spread from Beleg’s hand throughout his entire body. He understood how precious this gift was that Beleg offered him and the forbidden nature of their lust made it all the more pleasurable. He pushed his hips into Beleg’s hands, rough from the bow and the forest, and slid a hand to the back of his neck to pull him forward. He released a volley of moans against Beleg’s parted lips, his pleasure rising and cresting. 

It felt as if the end were near, that with one more stroke from Beleg’s hand, he would go tumbling down into a cavern of heat. His hand tightened at the back of Beleg’s neck, his eyes closing tight as he felt himself falling, and then, Beleg pulled away. A strange keening sound came from the back of his throat, pulling another laugh from Beleg. His body trembled, strung tight and waiting on the precipice. Beleg placed a kiss to the side of his neck and then he lay back, pulling Túrin on top of him. 

“There are more pleasurable things we can do between us,” Beleg said and Túrin’s body trembled at the suggestion as he held himself above him. 

There was a hesitance in him then, an uncertainty as he looked down to where Beleg lay, silver washing over the bedsheets, eyes dark in the half-light. To push this desire further would bind them together in ways unbreakable until death came searching for one of them. It wasn’t so with men, but the bond was real in the eyes of the Eldar and the thought frightened him. Beleg must have seen the fear in his face, he sat up on his elbows, his brow creased. 

“If it is not what you want, you can leave this bed,” Beleg said softly. “And we will not speak of this between us ever again. We can leave this desire as it is.”  _ Scalding and torturous.  _

_ You have wanted to reach out. My fëa has answered.  _

The meaning beneath the meaning lay plainly in front of him for Túrin to examine. They worshipped different gods, made bonds in different languages, a ring and a ritual for a mortal was not the same as a melding of bodies for one of the Eldar. They could not take their pleasure without great sacrifice. 

It would be swallowing death for Beleg. 

There was a soft smile on Beleg’s lips that Túrin wanted to kiss away, and he bent and did so because he was selfish and in love and he brought chaos wherever he went. Beleg buried his hand in the wild mess of his hair as Túrin pushed into his body, and he swallowed down his soft voice, his forest whisper, his river tones, rushing all around him. 

This was a pleasure he had not thought possible. Beleg was warm beneath him and around him and he kissed him roughly, his lust overtaking every rational thought he’d ever had. He felt as if he were chasing something unattainable, the pleasure was almost piercing and when Beleg pushed his head back, his lips parted, long throat bared, he felt himself nearing that cliff once again. 

Sweat had pressed curls of silver hair against Beleg’s temple and his skin was no longer clear glass, but red as the blushing asters that grew along the riverbank. He bent and kissed at Beleg’s flushed neck, tasting his sweat against his tongue, felt his legs pull him in closer, deeper. It felt almost sacrilegious to know Beleg in this way, to have his glass skin against his mouth, to invade him, as if he’d stepped onto the Valar’s own holy ground.

And yet, he went tramping through that most sacred of spaces, roughly, disjointedly. There was no grace in his movements even as Beleg moved like fluid water beneath him, ebbing and flowing. He shuddered, fingers twisting in the sheets beneath Beleg’s back as he stepped off of the ledge and fell as he had that day he’d broken bone, sharp and painful, leaving shards in the shadow of his ribs. 

He gasped, pushing flush into Beleg’s body, and went tumbling head over hand. He dropped his head onto Beleg’s shoulder, his breathing harsh, salt and clove in his mouth. He felt Beleg draw a hand down his spine, fingers playing on each ridge lightly. 

“I was mistaken,” Beleg spoke softly and Túrin raised his head, his breath still coming too fast, his hair a mess about his face. “You are no elk, but more lion or boar.” There was laughter in Beleg’s face and Túrin knew it was a tease but still he rolled from Beleg’s body, separating their mingled heat, and covered his face with his hands, a sudden shame flooding his body. When Beleg pulled his hands away, he found the evidence of Beleg’s own passion cooling against his stomach and the marks of Túrin’s kisses against his neck. He had spilled his seed between Beleg’s legs and it was irrevocable. It was damnation. 

“I would have it no other way.” 

Túrin rearranged the words quietly in his mind, knowing what he knew. 

_ I would have only you.  _

And he had gone stomping through the brush of Beleg’s heart because he was young and mortal and he had been too weak to turn away his desire. 

  
  


It was a silent morning, not even the trees moved beneath their snow laden branches. Túrin left the bed and Beleg’s warm embrace to ready himself for his journey and Beleg watched him openly, painting each detail of him in his mind. When it came to his hair, he looked at Beleg askance, and Beleg sat at the edge of the bed to weave a set court braids for him. He did it gently, slowly, savoring each touch, each brush of his knuckles against Túrin’s neck, each stolen kiss to his nape. Túrin would have rather shown up wild before his foster father but it was not the way of the court and what he would ask would be a heavy burden to Thingol. He slipped a bit of gold in the form of the clasps Túrin had brought from court, and they shone in the blackness of his hair. 

But still they did not speak, even when Beleg finally left the bed and readied himself and put together a small bundle of food for Túrin to carry with him. It would take several days to reach King Thingol’s halls. He could see a dark line of figures on horseback already waiting at the edge of his camp. A fine retinue Thingol had sent to retrieve his treasure. He knew that the king would try to turn Túrin from the path he meant to take, and he knew that Túrin would turn away from him and go his own way. Perhaps it would sour their relationship, but Túrin must answer the call his fate had set before him.

“I go to retrieve my inheritance,” Túrin finally spoke, his voice less certain than Beleg would have liked. He could not stop himself, he stepped forward, touching Túrin’s hair, the side of his neck, remembering how warm his skin had been last night, how flushed his neck had been in the deep of passion, how strong he had felt against his chest. His heart thudded with the memory and with the knowledge that it had only been for a night. 

He wondered how the dragon helm would look in Túrin’s hands, how it would gleam when it was placed against the deep black hair of its rightful owner. Would it put a fierceness to a face that still seemed too soft? He slid a thumb over Túrin's cheek and bent forward to kiss him. Túrin kissed him back firmly, his dark brows knitted. 

“You are trying to make me stay,” Túrin laughed a little as they broke apart, and the sound was light and clear and it startled Beleg for a moment. Rarely did Túrin smile, but never did he laugh. 

“I would never seek to turn you from your path,” Beleg answered honestly. “Though it pains me to see you go.” His fingers unfurled between them where lay the small carved figure of a white elk on a bit of leather. He’d carved it from the bone of the elk antlers above his bed. Túrin had lost the first gift he had carved for him in the fall from the cliff. Each day Túrin had lay healing, Beleg had sat carving, putting every whispered love confession and wish into the porousness of the bones. It was old healing magic and he hoped it was powerful enough to vanquish Túrin’s ill-fortune. He leaned in close and tied the pendant around Túrin’s neck, and then hid it beneath the collar of his tunic. 

“Only remember the forest and all her teachings. She will always welcome you home.” 

“I’ll remember  _ you _ ,” Was all Túrin said before he turned and left Beleg’s cabin, a dark shadow against the blinding snow. 

Seasons passed as they had done before a young boy with black hair and dark eyes had shown up on his doorstep nearly a decade ago. Beleg hunted and patrolled and watched the leaves turn colors but there was a new feeling inside of his chest now, an emptiness and for the first time, he felt what it was like to be without. 

At times, the feeling grew until it was nearly a wail rising in his throat, and a pain filled that emptiness. For the river now reminded him of Túrin, and the moss, and the trees, and the whisper of the forest was now Túrin’s voice in his ear. He made shapes out of stone, carving his pain into them, until Túrin’s face was in every creation he made. It felt as if it were his fëa searching for its bonded half, though it was strange and disjointed.

He felt as if he was going mad, until one day, Nellas, nurse-maid and friend of Túrin, crested the edge of the forest in her long white shift and hair loose and as dark as the bark of a tree. He had often thought of her as a guardian of the forest, a dryad of old. She flitted through the forest but was rarely seen, watching over Túrin. Her love was nearly as great as Beleg’s for their mortal friend. Rarely had she set foot inside the court, and for her to come to him now, set his heart to bounding in fear. She took his hands in hers, and her skin was beautiful and golden like the fall leaves, and again Túrin was in his mind at the color. 

“Túrin has been banished,” She said, “For spilling blood of our own-”

He felt faint, but she held his hands tighter, and her eyes were a calm lake. She did not seem troubled, and it soothed him a little. “But it is no fault of his. You know his nature, Strongbow. I watched with the trees as I have always done and I beg of you to follow me to court.” Beleg bent his head, his hair free and spilling about his face. He no longer wove braids. It was only he and Nellas in these woods now, and he felt as if he had begun to grow into the soil here and one day he would begin to sprout leaves. Loneliness had begun to seep deeper into his veins and slow his blood. Maybe that was death for the Eldar, waning with the seasons until the body became part of Arda once more. 

But he felt a quickening now, and he pulled his hands from Nellas’ grasp so that he could strap his strongbow to his back. He left his hair undone and wild and stood listening to the wind for a moment, catching the whispering beneath it, letting it blow through his hair, caress his neck with the gentlest of touches. All spoke of Túrin and he knew then that his bone talisman had not saved Túrin from his ill-fortune, but mayhap had set a new dark wheel to turning. 

Whatever Túrin had done, whatever truth Nellas would speak before Thingol, whatever judgment would be passed down, Beleg would find Túrin and he would bring him home, else he would follow him to the ends of Arda. He pressed a hand to his chest where that ache still sat, leaden and now gnawing. 

Love was a wound deeper than any healing bone; it never set right after it was gone, and the pain of it lived on. It was winter again, and though Túrin’s old tracks had been buried in new snow, Beleg felt their cadence and followed them out into the wild. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
